1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape printing apparatus and, more particularly, to a tape printing apparatus for inputting desired characters, such as letters and symbols, displaying the inputted characters on a display for the operator's confirmation, and printing the inputted characters onto a tape.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,152 has proposed a tape printing apparatus employed with a keyboard, a display unit and a print mechanism. Characters, such as letters and symbols, inputted through the keyboard are displayed on the display unit, while being printed, by the print mechanism, on a print medium housed in a tape cassette (e.g., a tape 18 or 24 mm wide). The tape printing apparatus is suitable for printing file names, for example, on the tape to make labels for classifying file binders.
More specifically, the display unit is similar to what is commonly used with word processors or the like. The characters inputted through the keyboard are displayed in matrix format in a predetermined character size (e.g., 16-dot size). The print character size, font and other format setting information are also displayed by the use of control characters ("F," etc.) The inputted characters are printed on the tape, in the print character size and in the font based on the format setting information.